In recent years the firm – which employs 450 people acoss its Mancheser and Liverpool offices – has led the way in making the profession more accessible.

It has made changes to its selection process with a view to improving access for applicants from lower socio-economic groups and ensuring that it recruits the best and brightest talent, regardless of background.

Grant Thornton has offered 77 places on its School Leavers Programme – which offers a route into accountancy, without the need to go to university – this year and has seen a 47% increase in applications for the programme, with trainees joining the firm across 20 different office locations.

Of these new entrants, 12 will be working in the firm’s Manchester and Liverpool offices, an increase from the nine young people taken on in the region in 2015.

One of the successful candidates is Luke McCormick, 18, from Manchester, who will join the School Leaver Programme at the end of this month, following a placement on the industry-wide Access Accountancy scheme.

He said: “The Access Accountancy Scheme provided an invaluable opportunity to explore the profession in ways I never knew were possible.

“I am really pleased to be joining Grant Thornton’s School Leaver Programme. I decided I would rather start work straight after leaving school rather than attending university because you get to experience the true nature of the job first- hand and gain invaluable insight and knowledge through working with experts in the profession every day. I can’t wait to start with the firm this summer.”

North West managing partner, Carl Williams, who himself did not go to university, but instead worked his way up through the firm added: “It’s great to see that our efforts to improve social mobility and to ensure that we recruit the best talent, regardless of background, are paying off.

“Grant Thornton has provided me personally with the development opportunities and support to progress. As a firm we are committed to removing traditional barriers to entry and we’re pleased to see other firms beginning to follow suit.

“My message today to those receiving resuls this morning would be not to panic if you haven’t received the grades you were hoping for. University is only one route into professional servies and I’d encourage them to look at the range of non-graduate programmes, internships and work-experience placements on offer at both Grant Thornton and the other leading firms.”

To evaluate its progress at improving access to people from all social backgrounds, Grant Thornon commissioned analysis by the The Bridge Group, a charitable policy association researching and promoting social mobility.

It included an in-depth piece of analysis involving 20,000 trainee candidates for both school leavers and graduates, conducted three years after the firm removed academic barriers to entry in 2012.

This found that 17% of Grant Thornton’s intake for school leaver and graduate programmes in 2016 would have been previously unable to apply based on academic criteria, including secondary school performance and degree classification.

In addition to flexible academic entry, Grant Thornton has taken several other measures aimed at increasing the diversity of its intake.

The firm has removed the emphasis on relevant work experience and extra-curricular achievements, investing in providing one-to-one coaching calls for all candidates before and after first round interviews, and creating online communities for candidates with the aim of encouraging peer-to-peer networking.